At long last, after conceiving, then thinking, then thinking some more, then researching, then thinking again, then doing more research, then designing, then reviewing the design and having it reviewed—at long last I’m building. The L-1 cert bird will be about 6′ (1.8 meters or so) long, about 2½” (6.5 cm) diameter. It will have […]

I finished painting Die Fledermaus, added the rail buttons, and threw some epoxy onto the eye bolt on the nose cone to close it off.  The pictures: The plan had been to fly at the Ranch on Saturday (May 5, one of my favorite days to launch rockets, especially at the Ranch: the anniversary of […]

Much progress of late on Die Fledermaus (even though all the parts for BAAH-1, my L1 cert bird, have arrived—though I have not yet ordered the parachute and heat shield). The rocket’s built, and now primed. As I type, the primer is drying. The rocket has very much become a prototype vehicle for the build […]

Continuing on the interlude build project, even though all the parts for BAAH-1 have arrived. The picture shows the rocket as things are taking shape. The MMT is installed, except for the aft centering ring. There are two centering rings now in place: forward and mid; the mid will serve as the forward structural element […]

I got a small scroll saw: small hobby size, nothing huge, nothing fancy. It fits on the workbench, with a nominal 16″ throat depth. It’s from Craftsman, got reasonably good reviews: in fact, from my combing and reading, about the best of anything in its general price class (I was not in the market for […]

The mission parameters included the site and the build: Build a rocket for 24mm motors, so I can play with the new 24mm reload kits I got. Build something that’s fun to fly at Snow Ranch and at NASA Ames. Because of the NASA Ames requirement, keep the maximum altitude under 300 meters. Be capable […]

I finally did more than remove the bulk of the damage on Bed Knobs and a Broomstick, damaged (very bad zipper, and a gussetted centering ring partially torn) at last month’s NASA Ames launch (see the posting). The zipper on the forward portion of the lower part of the rocket went right down into the […]

Removal of the vast majority of the damage to the forward portion of the S-II is complete. This entailed cutting around the S-II aft skirt wrap, which is the most complicated of the cylindrical (as opposed to conical) wraps, and probably the most complicated of all the wraps. The S-II aft skirt wrap has a […]

I’ve made the first sets of cuts on the Saturn V.  The rough cut to remove the forward, damaged portion of the S-II is done, the body tube for that has been separated from the S-II tunnel cover, and the forward motor mount centering ring, with its gussets, is removed. I’m documenting the work in […]

It’s been eight or ten months since the bottom part of my Saturn V crashed. The parachute for the bottom part was not ejected at deployment. In the ensuing crash, one fin was broken, the forward part of the tube and its attached wrap and tunnel cover (half-dowel) were damaged, the tube was kinked down […]